


Corvi

by Enchantable



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Doctor/Patient, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Major Character Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-09
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2020-04-23 07:12:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19146094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enchantable/pseuds/Enchantable
Summary: “Alex, I need to know how many times you’ve had a shoulder dislocation if you want me to get it back in there,” Kyle says.“Like 5 or 6,” he tries to say casually, “6,” he relents under Kyle’s look.





	Corvi

**Author's Note:**

> Original Prompt: Alex is injured to such a degree that any normal person would be freaking out from the pain and as Kyle fixes him up, Michael asks, "Why aren't you freaking out? You're literally gritting your teeth as though it's a minor bruise." "You know as well as I do that I've had way worse than this happen before."

“Sit him down,” Kyle orders Michael.

“ _He_  is right here,” Alex snaps, his voice nasally.

Kyle arches an eyebrow as he pulls on gloves. He’s used to patients not being well behaved when they’re in pain, though the unspoken thing is that Alex isn’t supposed to be his patient. Michael helps  ease him into the chair. Arguably he looks worse, his skin is pale and his eyes keep going back and forth between Alex’s features and the injury. He looks lost. So lost that when Kyle sits in front of Alex, it’s Michael he smiles reassuringly at. Then he focuses on Alex.

“You know you should be at a hospital,” he says.

“No-one is supposed to know we’re here,” Alex reminds him.

Kyle blows out a breath but he can’t argue that. No-one is supposed to know they’re here. Hospitals mean ID and they can’t have anyone finding out that they’re here. Not unless they want to deal with Jesse Manes or the US government. The motel staff is bad enough. Kyle carefully touches the bridge of Alex’s nose, trying to gauge his pain reaction. Alex just looks back blankly. Kyle pinches and shakes his head.

“Count to three for me,” he says, “one.”

Something crunches back into place and Alex suddenly can breathe a lot better. Which is a hell of a relief, even if it makes his eyes sting. The nose injury isn’t the thing he’s worried about though. Nor is the cut Kyle finds hidden along his hairline. He carefully disinfects it and bandages it. Scalp cuts are annoying as hell. Especially with his hair. Kyle catches his eye and Alex sees the first glint of guilt but shoots him a look that he hopes warns him off. He can’t have Kyle going to pieces because he found the scars hidden in Alex’s hair. Kyle looks away and their focus all seems to shift to the worst of it.

“Alex,” Kyle starts.

“Don’t,” Alex warns.

“Alex, I need to know how many times you’ve had a shoulder dislocation if you want me to get it back in there,” he says.

“Like 5 or 6,” he tries to say casually, “6,” he relents under Kyle’s look.

“And how many times did you put it back in there?”

“None,” he says, “someone else would.”

“Did you ever go to the hospital?” Kyle asks. Alex looks at him for a moment and then shakes his head, “damn it,” Kyle swears, looking away.

Michael is silent but he’s also practically shaking with rage. Alex has seen him like that once before. He finally lets himself look down at his dislocated fingers. Things are going to get worse before they get better. Michael’s done an amazing job of keeping it together. Alex hates that he needs him to keep it up. As Kyle carefully manipulates his joint, he reaches out and takes Michael’s hand. Kyle cracks it back into place and all three of them seem to exhale at the same time.

“God damn it Alex,” Kyle sounds actually upset and Michael grips his hand tighter.

“What? Did it not go in?”

“It should not be that easy,” Kyle says, “your dad—“

“I know what he is,” Alex cuts off, tightening his grip on Michael’s fingers, “we all know what he is.”

Kyle drags a chair up and there’s nothing really to do but get to it. He’s been doing a good job of keeping his hand out of sight, ignoring the sickening but familiar pain. He knows that it looks back and that it will feel immediately better when Kyle does his work but at the moment, the fact that most of his fingers have been dislocated makes his emotions fray.

It makes Michael physically sick.

He barely makes it to the bathroom in time. Alex looks down, wishing that it wasn’t his fingers that had gotten dislocated. Kyle touches one of them and he fights not to hiss at the sensation. He hears Michael in the bathroom running the tap and rinsing out his mouth and he knows he has very little time before he comes back.

“A lot,” he says, “they have been dislocated a lot. Don’t ask me again.”

Kyle says nothing as Michael comes out of the bathroom, wiping his hands off. He takes Alex’s hand again stubbornness written on every inch of him. Alex slots their fingers together. Kyle carefully straightens out and snaps his fingers back in place. Michaels grip gets tighter and tighter with each manipulation. Alex holds onto his hand. When Michael starts to tremble, he squeezes it to get his attention. Michael’s head whips towards him so fast Alex’s neck aches.

“Hey, I’m fine,” he says, smiling even as Kyle snaps his finger back in place, “barely even felt it.”

“I heard you in the bathroom,” Michael says in the most clipped tone that Alex has ever heard him use.

Damn.

“I’m fine,” he insists, “my hands are fine—“

“I always wondered why you’d leave a guitar like that just sitting there out of tune,” he says. Alex looks down, “it’s because you couldn’t play. Because your dad was dislocating your fingers.”

He doesn’t really have an answer for that.

Michael stares with complete horror as Kyle straightens the small digit in his pinky and then the rest of his finger, getting it back into place. When Alex goes to take his hand back, Kyle stops him and starts to painfully inspect his fingers.

“You got them all in,” Alex insists, “I know—“

“Don’t finish that sentence,” Kyle advises. Then he sets his hand down, “I’m going to get ice. Lots of ice.”

“I don’t—“

“Again,” Kyle says and Alex recognizes the guilt and anger in his voice, “don’t finish that sentence.”

He leaves and Michael drops into the vacated seat, facing him. Alex has always hated other people’s sympathy when it comes to his childhood. He’s used to it, his father being an abusive monster was the town’s worst kept secret. Sympathy never kept him from getting hurt, never got him out of his home. As a kid he didn’t know any better. As an adult, he wants to go to every parent who took an interest and demand some fucking answers. Right now though,  he’s not the one demanding answers.

Michale isn’t looking at him with pity or sympathy, he looks absolutely stricken. Everything that Alex remembers feeling the first time a joint got wrenched out of place is on his face. Like it’s him who got hurt, not Alex. If there is something he can say that he and Michael do well, it is try to protect each other. Key word being try. Though they have gotten better at it. When Michael’s fingers approach his and then snatch back, Alex lifts his hand and tries not to move his fingers as he puts it on top of Michael’s, forcing the alien to turn his palm up to carefully hold his hand.

“Joints can be put back,” he says as way of an explanation.

“God, Alex,” Michael squeezes his eyes shut, “he shouldn’t have laid a hand on you.”

It catches him off guard to hear that instead of the question that usually comes which is why he didn’t leave. Of all people, he could see Michael as being the one to ask it. Michael chose living in his truck over staying with someone who abused him. But that question doesn’t come. Maybe in a way Michael is the only person who could understand why he didn’t leave.

“I’m okay,” he insists.

“I’m taking you to Max the second we get back,” Michael says, determination in every word, “he can make sure your joints are tight and—and whatever else is better,” he says.

“Michael,” he starts.

“No, seriously, Max healed me after—“ he says, “he can help,” determination furrows his eyebrows, “think about it?”

Alex nods as Kyle starts in. Michael jumps up and drops his hand, immediately shoving his palm underneath Alex’s shirt and over the joint. Kyle comes in with the bucket of ice and scowls at the two of them.

“I said not to move the hand.”

“Heat helps,” Michael defends, “alternating heat and ice—“

“Okay I am the doctor in this room,” Kyle says, setting down the bucket, “I may not have initially thought my career would turn out like this, but I am still the doctor. The only doctor in this room,” Michael stares back at him, “and yes, you have a point.”

“Thank you both,” Alex says, cutting in before the squabbling can continue, “seriously. Thank you.”

They both shrug off his thanks, saying things about how they’re even and it’s not a problem. It might not feel as badly as it should, but getting his joins put back combined with his ability to breathe properly does make him realize his body is definitely signaling for rest. Kyle gets in one of the twin beds, closest to the door because he argues it’s his turn for the damn heroics—and he has a bullet proof vest. Which leaves him and Michael to tuck into the other. It’s not as if having a bigger bed would change the distance between them, but cuddled together might be the best he’s felt the night’s he’s gone to bed after shit like this. Michael drags the sheets over their head in an illusion of privacy.

“I really wish there wasn’t a doctor in the room so I could show you how brave I think you are,” Michael says.

“Kyle thinks I’m brave too,” he replies.

“You’re brave but you can be a real ass sometimes,” Michael tells him.

“Now I wish there wasn’t a doctor here so you could tell show me that too,” he says.

Michael catches his bottom lip in his teeth and Alex gives in to the urge to kiss him, running his tongue over the mark left there. There is someone else in the room, and it’s just one person who they both know and there’s a sheet over them, but the survival makes him bold enough to kiss Michael before tucking in against him, smiling when Michael works a hand under his shirt and flattens his palm against his shoulder.

Out of medically necessity, of course.


End file.
